


where god is cruel and fire cold

by manics_and_me



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: I wrote this for school, M/M, Soliloquy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manics_and_me/pseuds/manics_and_me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months we were together and I worshipped him as a flower worships the sun. What a cruel God he was revealed to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where god is cruel and fire cold

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my AS Coursework, which is why it's more of a let's-copy-Shakespeare kind of thing than I'd normally do.

[Outside Orsino's palace, night. Inside quiet sounds of a party can be heard, Viola and Orsino's wedding reception. Antonio is outside, alone.]

I knew I should not have come, yet there is a devotedness in my nature that once drew me from the coast to the heart of Illyria and now draws me to see this infernal tying and tidying of loose ends, all woven together in wedding vows- the happiest of contracts. Viola and Orsino. [pauses and swallows] Olivia and Sebastian. Their wilful, teasing fates have tired of them and left them to their symmetrical joy and now there they all dance together. I can feel the voracity of their happiness from here, and it's like they are all standing around a roaring fire while I freeze.

[Turns to face the palace]

We are not all quite so fortunate, and you, Sebastian, are not quite so equal with your sister. She, while wearing your mask, loved in quiet torment until the fates unravelled and delivered unto her Orsino. You, your mask in the possession of Viola, stayed with me in the only way you could. Without artifice. I invested in your looks, devoted myself to your touch and when you were still weak loved you with such carefully and pure sanctity that I felt Happiness itself could not but be impressed. Would wish to stay...

[Turns away from palace]

I have run with Bravery, sword clasped tight in my steady hand and the yearning for battle thrumming through my veins. I have run with Pride, the blood staining my blade marking me out as a hero in the heady fog of war, where else it would mark me a monster. I have run with Serenity, sailing to distant shores where the sand presses warm kisses to the skin and the sky is so bright it seeps through the eyelids and I have run with Awe, standing on a ship’s deck in the dead of night when the sky envelops the sea and I am alone in the dark with only the salt weathered wood beneath my feet to stop me floating… floating…

[Contemplates the sky for a moment}

But I never ran with Happiness, until he rose from storm tossed waves and carried in his arms Sebastian.

He set him down at my feet and he was pale and blue lipped, and water blurred his edges so it was as if there was only an idea of a man before me, blonde hair coloured dark by the sea obscuring his face and water sodden clothes lying heavy around him. Urgency guided my hands to feel for a pulse, surer on his storm bruised skin than they could ever have otherwise been, and found it beating shyly in his slim wrist. He shuddered, spluttered, coughed up water and I watched him, Fear holding me in place so cruelly when I wanted to help, my hand still grasping his wrist, feeling his pulse. He stilled and I brushed the hair from his face. He opened his eyes and looked at me. Happiness embraced me as its brother.

Three months we were together and I worshipped him as a flower worships the sun. What a cruel God he was revealed to be. I was so afraid, when he left for the town that something would take him from me, unworthy though I was to have any claim over him. As I journeyed further into Illyria I felt my enemies peered from every window, waited around every corner and still I ventured further, and still Happiness stayed by my side because I thought we would soon be together. I was bound by an otherworldly sacrament, the nature of which I could not fully understand. Something elemental, innate, connected us. Now I know its true name; witchcraft. And though Sebastian is betrothed to another he hath not the good grace to sever this… leash. And I have not the tools.

I have not seen Happiness since, and while this is a bereft and cold existence without it and I miss it terribly, I miss Sebastian so much more. Happiness, it seems, is not for the likes of me.

[Walks away from palace. Curtain falls.]


End file.
